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Harvard Negotiation Law Review
Spring 2004
Commentary
CULTURE AS CONTEXT, CULTURE AS COMMUNICATION: CONSIDERATIONS FOR HUMANITARIAN
NEGOTIATORS
Kevin Avruchd1
Copyright (c) 2004 Harvard Negotiation Law Review; Kevin Avruch
Introduction
In this essay I consider some of the special problems that humanitarian workers in the field encounter when engaging in
negotiations with parties whose cultural backgrounds differ substantially from their own. After a brief description of the
parameters of negotiation in general and humanitarian negotiation in particular, I conceptualize the notion of culture both in
terms of its broad “context setting” properties and its more specific impact on communication.
It is widely understood today that negotiation covers a large territory, both conceptually and behaviorally. At one extreme is
the very broad sense of the term as conceived by Anselm Strauss, 1 whereby all of ongoing social life is negotiated by actors
qua interlocutors, and therefore the social order is fundamentally a negotiated order. 2 At the other extreme, negotiation
commonly describes highly specific behavioral arenas or interactions, such as hostage or crisis negotiations. 3 This essay
addresses certain problems arising in negotiations in the latter sense: the highly specialized dialogues carried on by
humanitarian fieldworkers in conflict or post-conflict situations. My immediate concern is with how culture impacts
negotiation in these situations, and I consider the usefulness of some of the extant work on intercultural negotiation in these
unique and often *392 highly charged situations. I also will discuss how certain widely accepted notions of general
negotiation strategy and theory, such as the concept of a BATNA, figure in the case of humanitarian negotiation.
I. Humanitarian Negotiation
The “humanitarian negotiation” domain derives from the general articles of the Geneva Convention 4 adopted in August of
1949. The opening general provisions define noncombatants as “persons not taking active part in the hostilities[,]”5 and
subsequent paragraphs provide that they be guaranteed “protection”6 and “assistance[.]”7 The Convention lists assistance
under “services”8 rendered to noncombatants but does not further elaborate; however, the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue
in Geneva defines assistance to include food, non-food items, water and sanitation, medical and health services, and
corresponding logistical support.9 In addition, the Convention guarantees “access” by third party agents to affected
populations. Originally “agents” meant the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC); today a variety of international
organizations (IOs) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) actively participate. Broadly, humanitarian negotiation
refers to any sort of negotiation carried out by humanitarian workers in the field in order to gain access to populations at risk
and render protection and assistance.
Since such negotiation often takes place in cultural settings different from those of the humanitarian workers, it is reasonable
to ask how culture affects the dynamics of negotiation in these special circumstances, and whether what we know about
intercultural negotiations (or certain basic tenets of general negotiation theory) may fruitfully be brought to bear.
II. Culture
In his memoirs, former United Nations Under Secretary General Sir Brian Urquhart tells the story of the first night in 1957
that a contingent of the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) was *393 deployed to Gaza. That evening, upon hearing
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from the minarets the muezzin’s call to prayers, but not understanding Arabic or the meaning of the act, the U.N. troops
believed it to be a call to civil disorder and fired in panic on the mosque. 10
Today, it is hard to imagine such a complete lack of fundamental and substantive knowledge about the “host” society and its
culture by the majority of international participants in a complex humanitarian intervention. Yet the level of culture-specific
pre-deployment training in most IOs, NGOs, and militaries is far from sufficient. Typically, humanitarian agents learn about
their host society’s culture by committing to memory a standardized list of “do’s and don’ts” (e.g., “don’t offer your left hand
to an Arab”; “don’t pat a Buddhist on the head;” “don’t expect the Latin Americans to be on time for the meeting”). This
practice conceives of cultures as collections of static traits and customs. What gets left out is the dynamism--the conflicts,
change, and quality of emergence that characterize cultures. To try to learn about another culture from lists of traits and
custom is akin to trying to learn English by memorizing the Oxford English Dictionary--all vocabulary, no grammar. This
method is particularly illsuited for those trying to master a dynamic process like negotiation in a foreign cultural context.
There are numerous definitions of culture and they continue to proliferate. For our purposes, culture refers to the socially
transmitted values, beliefs and symbols that are more or less shared by members of a social group. These constitute the
framework through which members interpret and attribute meaning to both their own and others’ experiences and behavior.
One key assumption implicit in this definition is that culture is a quality of social groups and perhaps communities, and that
members may belong to multiple such groups. Therefore, an individual may “carry” several cultures, for example, ethnic or
national, religious, and occupational affiliations. Thus, for any given individual, culture always comes “in the plural,” and
therefore every interaction (including negotiation) between individuals is likely to be multicultural on several levels. Another
assumption is that culture is rarely, if ever, perfectly shared by all members of a group or community. Intracultural variation
is likely to be present, perhaps considerable, and this should caution us against ascribing value, belief, or behavioral
uniformity to members of a group--against stereotyping.11 These assumptions suggest that socialization *394 is the aggregate
of numerous social interactions where culture is transmitted. It therefore becomes crucial to understand the different sources
of culture and their different modes of transmission.
These assumptions militate against using lists of traits and do’s and don’ts to learn about another culture. Rather, as
specialists in intercultural communication put it, a more sophisticated approach is necessary to become “culturally
competent.” For humanitarian workers, who routinely find themselves working under difficult conditions in unfamiliar
cultural settings, the attainment of such cultural competence is especially important--it might mean the difference between the
success or failure of the mission. Certainly, it lies at the core of the broader concept of “communicational competence,”
which in turn is a prerequisite for social interaction generally, and in particular, for the kind of interaction called
negotiation.12
One popular model of culture is the “iceberg,” commonly depicted as a triangle or pyramid.13 In this model, the top level
visible above the surface is comprised of behavior, artifacts, and institutions. Underlying this level, just beneath the surface
but fairly easily accessible to sensitive observers, are norms, beliefs, values and attitudes. At the deepest level, all but
invisible even to members of a cultural group, lie the fundamental assumptions and presuppositions, the
sense-and-meaning-making schemas and symbols, the ontology, about the world and individuals’ experience in it. 14 While a
useful heuristic, the iceberg concept tends unhelpfully to assume a homogeneity of cultural sharing among individuals (this is
never the case), and it lacks dynamism. Much more goes on “inside” the iceberg than the simple model implies; furthermore,
icebergs frequently move about, often with disastrous results for shipping.
III. Negotiation
Before leaving structural (and static) models like the iceberg to focus on cultural process, a word about what similar models
may teach us regarding negotiation itself follows. Perhaps the most popular model of negotiation that is currently taught
(indeed, prescribed) *395 is the so-called Harvard model, exemplified in Fisher, Ury and Patton’s Getting to Yes. 15 This
model first instructs negotiators to get below the positions taken by the parties to try and identify the underlying interests.
This is excellent advice, since while positions may clash or appear irreconcilable, some interests may be mutual and therefore
amenable to bridging. This model has been demonstrably successful in intracultural commercial settings within the same
nation or similar nations sharing a capitalist or free market context. 16 The interest-based model of negotiation takes shared
context for granted, as given. Yet such sharing is precisely what is problematic when negotiating cross-culturally. Moreover,
the stratified iceberg implies that fundamental assumptions or presumptions about the world may lurk beneath even shared
interests. I argue that it is far more difficult to reconcile or “bridge” conflicts of values or world views than interests. I am
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less confident of the success of interest-based negotiation in conflicts around deeply held values such as identity, or around
religiously-inspired worldviews. While not all negotiations faced by humanitarians in the field will necessarily involve such
fundamental parts of the cultural iceberg, some will, and in those cases the limitations of strictly interest-based bargaining
ought to be considered.
IV. Context and Culture
Of the many different ways to conceive of the role of culture in humanitarian negotiation, two deserve special discussion:
culture as context and culture as communication. “Context” refers to culture in its broadest, framework-defining,
worldview-constituting sense. Here, culture includes deep presuppositions and presumptions about how the world works,
which give contour to how individuals meaningfully experience and act in their worlds.
Consider the domain of social conflict--culture frames the context in which conflict occurs. Culture determines what manners
of things are subjects for competition or objects of dispute, often by postulating their value and relative (or absolute) scarcity:
for example, notions of honor or purity, or accumulation of capital and profits. Culture also stipulates rules, sometimes
precise, usually less so, for how contests should be pursued, including when they begin and how *396 to end them. Finally,
returning to our earlier definition, culture provides individuals with cognitive and affective frameworks for interpreting the
behavior and motives of self and others.17 With respect to conflict, to see culture as context is to understand that culture per
se, and even cultural differences, are rarely if ever the main “cause” of conflict (Samuel Huntington’s “clash of
civilizations”18 notwithstanding). Culture, however, is always the lens that refracts the causes of conflict. 19 With respect to
negotiation, to see culture as context is to understand that even before parties meet and converse for the first time, their most
fundamental comprehensions of their respective positions, interests, and values have been set and circumscribed by the very
language (i.e. culture) with which they bring them to expression.
UNICEF representative Daniel Toole provides two examples of the role of “deep” cultural context--the base parts of the
iceberg--in humanitarian negotiations.20 While not addressing culture specifically, he first describes the deep divide between
U.N. negotiators and the Taliban in Afghanistan over fundamental conceptions of human rights, such as treatment of girls
and women. The lack of shared values and norms respecting gender equality made any discussion across the cultural divide
on these issues next to impossible.21 “As a consequence,” Toole writes, “negotiation of numerous issues was very difficult
and made little headway.”22 Many humanitarian programs in Afghanistan were subsequently suspended. 23
Toole’s second example relates to the different principles of action that distinguish the U.N. from many humanitarian
organizations. Such principles underlying action are sometimes called “strategic culture.”24 In difficult cases, the UN’s
strategic culture employs a principle of “conditionality”--using a combination of carrots and sticks to induce change in
recalcitrant negotiation partners. For *397 many humanitarians, however, who remain committed to providing aid to people
in need regardless of political considerations, such conditionality appears ethically unsound and unacceptable. 25
The debate over conditionality raises concerns about the viability of traditional negotiation concepts when applied in
humanitarian contexts. In classical negotiation theory, parties must always bear in mind their “reservation prices” (the point
at which each will not “sell” or “buy”), and what Roger Fisher and his collaborators famously called the BATNA, or “best
alternative to a negotiated agreement[.]”26 This is the imagined best-case scenario should negotiations break down, and
correlates to “the point at which a negotiator is prepared to walk away from the negotiation table.”27 If a party has not settled
on a reservation price or thought through his BATNA, he is seriously disadvantaged in subsequent negotiation. Consider
what the lack of conditionality implies for humanitarian negotiators-- especially if the other party learns of that deficiency.
The principle that one gives aid or renders protection to those in need, irrespective of identity, past actions, or “politics,”
means that there is no “reservation price” available to humanitarians, save in the field an operational withdrawal point if the
situation becomes too dangerous. Also, in humanitarian negotiation there is no real BATNA for access or aid or
protection--all the alternatives are bad ones, and inaction becomes unthinkable. Humanitarians thus face ethically precarious
options of negotiating how many sacks of rice a warlord takes for allowing the convoy through, or (even more unsavory) of
allowing militias or genocidaires to distribute the food in a refugee camp so that any is distributed at all.
In both cases described by Toole, any negotiations that take place will be framed from the start by the different cultural
constructions of the world brought to the table by the parties. In this sense, the parties never wholly define the negotiating
situation; it comes to them, as they come to it, partly predefined. Such predefinition may create an obstacle for negotiations.
For instance, should one negotiating party’s construction of the world be based upon a universal *398 human rights discourse
not shared by other parties, an impasse may result. Such is the power of cultural context.
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Notice that Toole’s two examples draw from different sites of cultural difference. In the U.N.-Taliban case, parties deal
across a “civilizational” divide à la Huntington, separating the familiar categories of Western and fundamentalist Islamic
cultures. In the U.N.-humanitarian divergence over the issue of conditionality, the locus of strategic culture appeared to reside
in organizations or institutional settings. Culture then is not merely a property of racial, ethnic, religious, or national
groups--the usual “containers” for culture depicted in the negotiation literature.28 Organizations, institutions, professions and
occupations are also containers for culture and sites of cultural difference. Each may serve to delimit its own context.
In a complex humanitarian operation, the number of such contexts can appear overwhelming. Not uncommonly, they include
(1) the cultures of the host country populations (often comprised of several distinct subcultural groups); (2) those of
international aid, development, humanitarian and relief organizations; (3) those of heavily bureaucratized institutions such as
the U.N. (itself subculturally differentiated by nationality, and, more importantly, by functional divisions with geographically
disparate headquarters); and (4) often by various militaries, with their own internal service divisions, inculcations of ethos,
and national peacekeeping “doctrines.” Add, perhaps, international media to the mix and humanitarian negotiators face an
exceedingly complex operation in a multicultural arena of national, ethnic, institutional, and professional interactions.
For example, in a multicultural arena an American military officer and an American civilian aid worker may share many of
the same understandings and perceptions of the world based upon their shared American culture, and easily communicate
about many matters (though they may still have much to disagree about, of course). However, on matters relating to security,
force protection, command-and-control, or rules of engagement, the American military officer may share more cultural
commonality with an Indian, Pakistani, or Nigerian military colleague; the mutual premises of a transnational “military
culture” will facilitate communication between them. This *399 may be the case even when language differences necessitate
the services of an interpreter. On the other hand, within the NGO community, even the English-speaking one, conflicts may
arise in the field because of differences in the organizational or strategic cultures of relief or humanitarian workers focused on
quick response, immediate access to populations in need, and crisis problem solving; those of workers representing
sustainable development organizations who have longer term or infrastructural concerns; and those of a U.N. official focused
on political or diplomatic issues.
One practical implication is that humanitarian negotiators, like all parties to a conflict, ought to begin with a process of
“conflict mapping” that includes learning about the history, sources, and parties that define the conflict arena. 29 In addition to
this traditional mapping, I also suggest a preliminary cultural mapping including cultural knowledge about the host
populations (e.g., Sunni and Shi’a Muslims in the following proportions...), and the various national and institutional cultures
participating from the international community--NATO, U.N. peacekeepers, the ICRC, CARE, Oxfam, and Médecins Sans
Frontières (MSF). One can imagine a multicultural arena complicated enough just by the presence of different U.N.
bureaucracies! Are religiously-based NGOs present? Muslim as well as Christian? Will that matter? And so on.
It is critical to underline the “preliminary” nature of such a culture mapping, for two reasons. First, the knowledge about
these cultures must come from somewhere--most likely from the experiential base that those in the field bring from having
worked in such operations with some or all of the same international parties before. For instance, what does it mean that the
U.S. Marines, rather than U.K. or Italian forces, are responsible for security in this sector; that the U.N. Development
Program (UNDP) rather than the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is the “lead” U.N. organization, and so
on. Experience is indispensable. On the other hand, experience also comes with costs, as anyone who has ever spent time in a
postcolonial hotel bar listening to the old “X-hand” tell you all you need to know about the “X’s” in five whiskeys or less,
can attest. Cultural experience can devolve to unproductive, and possibly relationship-damaging, stereotyping unless subject
to constant “quality control.” Negotiators must check the purported experience against the observable realities generated in
the field.30
*400 Second, cultures are neither timeless nor changeless; they are always emerging within the larger framework of social
action and social practice. This emergent quality means in effect that each operation will after a time generate its own cultural
context, along with (as we have come learn) its own political economy. For this reason, we must revisit the preliminary
cultural mapping, both to sift out the difference between useful experience and costly prejudice, and to take account of the
cultural emergence that occurs when individuals from different backgrounds work together, particularly under stress, in
crisis, and in fitful communication with their respective headquarters and bureaucracies.
One brief example of an admittedly modest cultural emergence may be found in Chris Seiple’s excellent monograph, The
U.S. Military/NGO Relationship in Humanitarian Interventions.31 The setting is Operation Provide Comfort in Northern Iraq
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in 1991. During the first week, the NGO MSF-France doctors had wanted nothing whatsoever to do with U.S. Army Special
Forces personnel working in their area. This aversion stemmed from several factors, including the rather thorny reputation
that MSF enjoyed in those days even among other NGOs, coupled with their dislike of working with the military in general,
and a pointedly French dislike of working with the American military. Even worse, these were not only American soldiers,
but Special Forces--Green Berets--whose overwhelming image probably still conjures for most outsiders the persona of
Rambo (just as the overall image of America still comes to many in the world courtesy of Hollywood and American
television). However, Seiple relates, once the MSF physicians had witnessed Special Forces medics in the field, superbly
trained and saving lives; once they had witnessed the Special Forces administering to basic health needs; and--my
favorite--once they realized that many, undoubtedly because of language training, spoke French, the situation changed
dramatically. By the end of the first week, Seiple writes, the MSF doctors had invited the Special Forces teams to dinner.32
*401 One should be cautious in generalizing from such anecdotes (particularly about the chances for Franco-American
commensality these days). Yet the larger point remains: culture may predefine a situation, but does not inexorably fix it.
Some negotiation theorists have spoken of a “third culture” that may emerge in intercultural negotiating encounters--the
culture of the negotiation itself.33 Indeed, it is hard to imagine a successful or productive intercultural negotiation that did not
in some manner succeed in creating (however fleeting) a cultural context shared by both parties. 34 How else could they
communicate?
V. Communication and Culture
I now turn from talking about culture purely as “context” to “communication.” This transition is inevitable, since
communication--including that specialized form called negotiation--always occurs in a culturally defined context, and
therefore culture plays a crucial role in communication. At the base of generalized communicatory competence always lies
cultural competence. This is especially true for humanitarian negotiators seeking to communicate across cultural divides.
What does such cultural competence entail? There are at least two dimensions. The first has to do with substantive cultural
knowledge-- specifically, knowing what key cultural symbols mean and how to speak the language (although bilingualism
does not always imply biculturalism). This sort of cultural competence (or the acknowledged lack of it) is precisely why
intercultural interlocutors rely on translators and interpretation.
For instance, it is important to know, when negotiating with the Chinese in the aftermath of an accidental bombing of their
embassy, or after a collision with one of their aircraft, how many words for “apology” there are in Chinese, and the range of
contrition, expression of sorrow or regret, acceptance of responsibility, or admission of outright wrongdoing that the several
different words for “apology” can convey. In both the embassy and airplane incidents the Chinese initially demanded from
the U.S. daoqin, an explicit apology that implies a formal admission of wrongdoing. 35 Responding to the April *402 2001
spy plane collision, U.S. leaders, after denying at first that there was anything to apologize for, offered American “regret” for
the loss of the plane and its pilot. The Chinese translated this as yihan, 36 a mild and somewhat ambiguous term that carries no
strong expression of remorse, or even of sincerity--a diplomatic word par excellence!
The Chinese example demonstrates a conflict intensified by the complexities of translation and interlinguistic ambiguity. In
fact, both the Americans and Chinese were negotiating precisely to slant the ambiguity inherent in any sense of “apology”
specific to their own party’s political (propagandistic) advantage. 37 Ambiguity can even be constructive in diplomatic
negotiations, up to a point. Nevertheless, the world of international diplomacy is replete with cases of interstate conflicts
exacerbated by intercultural misunderstanding and miscommunication.38
Similar misunderstandings arise in international business and commercial negotiation settings.39 Yet even when cultural
differences are taken seriously, and substantive cultural knowledge is pursued, the “knowledge” often comes in the guise of
“facts” imparted to negotiators as part of elaborated lists or explicit lexicons or glossaries. As demonstrated in our earlier
discussions of static models, however, real cultural competence of a substantive sort consists not of memorized lists, just as
real linguistic competency does not consist of endless memorized vocabulary. Rather, the deeper knowledge about cultural
context, and the nexus to communication, is crucial. *403 The many terms for “apology,” lacking in American English but
finely shaded and nuanced in Chinese, make sense in the broader context of a Confucian society with well-developed notions
of hierarchy, rank, deference, social liability and responsibility, and the value of sustained relationships.
For humanitarian negotiators, substantive cultural competency is a wonderful advantage to have but is rarely possessed. To
engage in intercultural training and skills building in the absence of this deep (even ethnographic) knowledge, and given the
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many constraints of time, humanitarians must realistically aspire to a lesser sort of cultural competence--an informed way of
thinking about culture along with a general sensitivity to and awareness of different “cultural styles” and their possible effects
on such communication processes as negotiation.
Humanitarians must also tailor training to the different sorts of negotiation that will be required, whether we conceive of this
difference in terms of institutional “levels” or the situation at hand. For example, there is a difference between the negotiation
that might take place between the country team leader of an IO or NGO and a local governor or senior military officer about
the ever-changing rules and understandings governing access, and the skills needed by perhaps a more junior IO or NGO
fieldworker trying to negotiate a particular aid convoy past a checkpoint manned by equally junior counterparts. Likewise,
the negotiation between principals over the absolute tonnage of food to be allowed into the port or airport requires distinct
skills from those demanded of a humanitarian worker facing an incipient riot at a food distribution center or hospital.
The latter cases share something in common with the sort of crisis negotiations (often around hostage situations) in which
domestic law enforcement frequently specializes. Often, a basic distinction must be made between the instrumental aspects of
a negotiation (the compatibility of the parties’ respective and objective goals or concerns), and the expressive aspects (the
impact of emotions, particularly with respect to identity concerns in some hostage cases, as well as building and sustaining a
relationship of trust and preventing emotions from running “so hot” that violence ensues).40 In one fundamental way the
police crisis negotiator and the humanitarian fieldworker share a similar dynamic. The police recognize that they are there to
manage the dispute and help it end without further violence. They are not there to resolve the underlying problem(s) that
*404 led to the crisis--the common strife of crime, broken marriages, lost jobs, or mental illness that they confront across the
barricades. Similarly, humanitarian negotiators (as Daniel Toole has observed), explicitly stress that “they are not involved in
the resolution of the underlying political issues at the heart of a conflict.”41 The police negotiator is not a social reformer; and
the humanitarian negotiator is not an agent of deep political change. Also, in both cases the success or failure of a particular
negotiation is usually transparent: hostages are released, killed or injured; an aid convoy gets through and achieves access, or
fails. However, one striking difference is that the police negotiator may have the “tactical option” at hand--the S.W.A.T. team
applying overwhelming force. The humanitarian (a few NATO scenarios aside) almost never does. The options for “coercive
negotiation” in humanitarian cases, leaving aside the ethical issues surrounding conditionality discussed earlier, thus appear
limited.
Finally, as in the case of interest-based negotiation, deep cultural differences complicate the situation and potentially
compromise the instrumental/expressive model. Jayne Docherty’s analysis of the failed negotiations between U.S. federal
law enforcement and the Branch Davidian religious community in Waco, Texas, in 1993, which ended with the deployment
of overwhelming force and much death and destruction, demonstrates the limitations of the standard instrumental/expressive
distinction (and the negotiating schematics prescribed by it) when the parties attempt to communicate across the deepest
cultural divides of ontology and worldview.42
VI. Some Key Cultural Styles or Orientations
One key to attaining the limited cultural competence mentioned above--a sensitivity to cultural difference and an appreciation
for how such difference can affect negotiation--is less a matter of knowing specific, substantive things about another culture
and more a matter of knowing some of the ways that culture may affect individuals’ basic orientations toward such matters as
time, power, “face,” or risk. First of all, it involves dismissing the idea that everyone everywhere thinks about the world in
the same way we do and that, for example, all an American must to do be understood outside the *405 United States is to
keep speaking English, though perhaps LOUDER and SLOWER.
Another key is to avoid committing what social psychologists call the “fundamental attribution error.”43 This error arises
when one encounters behavior by another that is puzzling or disturbing in some way, and attributes that behavior to the
personality or character of the individual, rather than to “external” factors such as the larger environment or situation
(including situations characterized by cultural difference). Some social psychologists, moreover, argue that this attribution
error more likely occurs in cultures where values favoring individualism are stressed over those favoring collectivism.44 The
individualism/collectivism contrast is, in fact, one of several widely distributed (if not universal) cultural orientations that
communication analysts argue have significant effects on intercultural negotiation processes and outcomes. 45 Here is a partial
list of other frequently noted “basic” contrasts--egalitarianism and hierarchy (sometimes measured as something called
“power distance”46); low context and high context communication styles (sometimes simplified as “direct” and “indirect”47);
and monochronic and polychronic orientations48 toward time.
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With respect to intercultural negotiation, Professor Jeswald Salacuse, concentrating on commercial or business settings, has
outlined ten factors that affect communication and thus negotiation process: negotiation goal (contract or relationship);
attitude towards negotiating (win-lose/win-win); negotiator’s personal style (informal or formal); negotiator’s
communicational style (direct/indirect; low context/high context); sensitivity towards time (high or low); felt or expressed
emotionalism (high or low); preferred form of agreement (general or specific); agreement-building process (“bottom-up” or
“top-down”); negotiating team organization (one leader or consensus); and propensity toward risk-taking (high or low).49
Taking into account *406 the business or commercial orientation of this list, as well as its assumption of repeated
negotiations between the same parties over a period of time, I suspect that humanitarian negotiators, working under special
stresses and time pressures that are not culturally but situationally driven, will find lists of this sort to be only mildly useful.
For humanitarian negotiators, the more basic division developed by police crisis negotiators--instrumental versus expressive
negotiation--may be more readily applied. Lists such as Salacuse’s likely help more in the kinds of higher-level intercultural
negotiations that seek to establish the basic “rules of engagement” for humanitarian efforts in the field.
Finally, the extent to which a negotiator achieves a cultivated sensitivity for “thinking about culture” depends to a large
degree on the personal qualities of the individual negotiator. (However, note that I imply such qualities may be “cultivated”).
Some of these more personal styles include the following: an appreciation for conceptual complexity (i.e., thinking in terms
of shades of gray, rather than black and white); a critical stance toward stereotyping others; an ability to establish new social
relationships fairly easily; a capacity for empathy; and an interest in the other culture. Also essential are a critical awareness
of one’s own ethnocentrism; a tolerance for difference plus a capacity to suspend judgment; a sense of humor (though be
careful: humor is often notoriously culture-bound); and skills in collaborative problem solving. 50
Once again, I present this list to humanitarian workers with some reservation. It is not that the advice here is bad or wrong.
But it does imply, among other things, a modicum of cultural relativism that the humanitarian negotiator, working perhaps in
the wake of horrendous violence or human rights abuses, and perhaps necessarily with acknowledged perpetrators, will have
a hard time sustaining.
Conclusion
This essay seeks to indicate some of the considerations involved when humanitarian workers, seeking to gain access to
populations in order to render protection and assistance, must negotiate with others across cultural boundaries. In this sense,
the essay focuses on how culture impacts humanitarian negotiations. It also seeks, however, to show that analysis of
intercultural humanitarian negotiation also illustrates some limitations of any general theory of negotiation. In particular, the
interest-based approach leaves cultural analysis aside *407 and takes for granted precisely that which attention to culture
makes problematic--the multiple contexts of meaning in which interests are always and intractably embedded.
In the end, the best advice for intercultural negotiators, humanitarians or otherwise, is to strive for cultural competence in
both senses: substantive cultural knowledge about negotiating partners (usually derived from previous experience), combined
with a cultural “sensibility,” a framework for thinking about culture and why it matters. Negotiators should also be keenly
aware of their own negotiating style, or, more broadly, their own “conflict” style. (There are self-testing ways available to
roughly “inventory” these.) In the end, the indispensable knowledge is self-knowledge.
Footnotes
d1
Professor, Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution and Senior Fellow, Peace Operations Policy Program, George Mason
University. This essay is based on a paper delivered at the annual meeting of the Humanitarian Negotiators Network, convened by
the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue of Geneva, in Talloires, France in May, 2003. I thank Andrew Andrea and Deborah
Mancini of the Centre, Josh Weiss of PON, and my research assistant Zheng Wang for facilitating my participation.
1
Anselm Strauss, Negotiations: Varieties, Contexts, Processes, and Social Order (1978).
2
See id. at 5-6.
3
See, e.g., Jack Cambria et al., Negotiation Under Extreme Pressure: The “Mouth Marines” and the Hostage Takers, 18 Negot. J.
© 2011 Thomson Reuters. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.
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CULTURE AS CONTEXT, CULTURE AS..., 9 Harv. Negot. L. Rev....
331 (2002).
4
See The Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Conditions of the Wounded and Sick in the Armed Forces in the Field
(Aug. 1949).
5
Id. at Ch. 1, Art. 3, P 1.
6
Id. at Ch. 1, Art. 3, P 2.
7
Id.
8
See The Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Conditions of the Wounded and Sick in the Armed Forces in the Field,
supra note 4, at Ch. 1, Art. 3, P 2.
9
See http://www.hdcentre.org.
10
Brian Urquhart, A Life in Peace and War 136 (1987).
11
Kevin Avruch, Culture and Conflict Resolution (1998).
12
Communication, Culture, and Organizational Processes, 9 Int’l & Intercultural Comm. Anns. 1 (William B. Gudykunst et al. eds.,
1985).
13
For a representative discussion of this model, see, e.g., Susan C. Schneider & Jean-Louis Barsoux, Managing Across Cultures
(1997).
14
See id.
15
Roger Fisher, William Ury & Bruce Patton, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In (2d ed. 1991).
16
See id.
17
Marc Howard Ross, Culture and Identity in Comparative Political Analysis, in Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture, and
Structure 42 (Mark Irving Lichbach & Alan S. Zuckerman eds., 1997).
18
Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996).
19
Kevin Avruch & Peter W. Black, Conflict Resolution in Intercultural Settings: Problems and Prospects, in Conflict Resolution
Theory and Practice: Integration and Application 131 (Dennis J.D. Sandole & Hugo Van Der Merwe eds., 1993).
20
Daniel
Toole,
Humanitarian
Negotiation:
Observations
from
Recent
Experience
(Feb.
© 2011 Thomson Reuters. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.
22,
2001),
at
http://
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WILLIAM GOLDMAN 9/27/2011
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CULTURE AS CONTEXT, CULTURE AS..., 9 Harv. Negot. L. Rev....
www.hsph.harvard.edu/hpcr/HumanitarianNegotiation_Toole.pdf.
21
Id. at 4.
22
Id.
23
Id.
24
See, e.g., Alastair Iain Johnston, Thinking About Strategic Culture, Int’l Security, Spring 1995, at 32-64.
25
See Toole, supra note 20, at 4. Toole refers here to a more fundamental dilemma faced by humanitarianism: its increasing
rapprochement with larger political and military “systems” and their goals, especially with respect to the movement for human
rights. This dilemma is considered at length in David Rieff, A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis (2002).
26
Fisher et al., supra note 15, at 97.
27
Leigh Thompson, The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator 11 (2d ed. 2000).
28
See, e.g., Kevin Avruch, Conceptualizing Professional Culture and International Negotiations, in Professional Cultures in
International Negotiation: Bridge or Rift? 201-16 (Gunnar Sjöstedt ed. 2003).
29
Paul Wehr, Conflict Regulation (1979).
30
Another common source of such information or cultural knowledge is, of course, the local people hired by the outside agencies
such as drivers, translators, field assistants, and so on. When they act as “cultural brokers” they are literally indispensable. But
they are also insiders themselves, and the knowledge they bring to those who employ them is rarely without its own biases and
“positionality.” Even if it were not, the outside intervenors in the end must be willing to listen to their local staff. As any
humanitarian worker will tell you, some are invariably better (and more respectful) listeners than others.
31
Chris Seiple, The U.S. Military/NGO Relationship in Humanitarian Interventions (1996).
32
Id. at 192.
33
See, e.g., Benjamin J. Broome, Managing Differences in Conflict Resolution: The Role of Relational Empathy, in Conflict
Resolution Theory and Practice, supra note 19, at 97.
34
Id.
35
For a Chinese version of events and discussion, see Chinese Foreign Ministry, Spokesman Zhu Bangzao Gives Full Account of
the
Collision
Between
US
and
Chinese
Military
Planes,
April
4,
2001,
available
at
http://
www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/xwfw/2510/2535/t14916.htm; Vice-Premier Qian Qichen: “The US Side Should Apologize to the
Chinese People,” April 9, 2001, available at http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/wjb/zzig/bmdyzs/gjlb/3432/3435/t17132.htm. For an
American discussion of the apology, see Hard to Say I’m Sorry: U.S.-China Standoff Focuses on Language, ABC Daily News,
© 2011 Thomson Reuters. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.
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CULTURE AS CONTEXT, CULTURE AS..., 9 Harv. Negot. L. Rev....
April 9, 2001, available at http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/chinasemantics010409.html.
36
See Jiang Zemin: Crew Safe and Sound, US Arrogant Conduct Unacceptable, People’s Daily, April 6, 2001, available at http://
www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/xwfw/2510/2535/t14917.htm Chinese Foreign Ministry, Spokesman Sun Yuxi on Powell’s Letter to Vice
Premier Qian Qichen, April 6, 2001, available at http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/9610.html.
37
See, e.g., Peter Hays Gries & Kaiping Peng, Culture Clash? Apologies East and West, 11 J. Contemp. China (30) 173 (2002).
38
See, e.g., Raymond Cohen, Negotiating Across Cultures: International Communication in an Interdependent World (Rev. ed.
1997). Cohen cites an example of a conflict around another Western-Asian “apology” dispute, between the Malaysian and
Australian prime ministers in 1993. See id. at 38-43.
39
See, e.g., Jeswald W. Salacuse, Making Global Deals: What Every Executive Should Know About Negotiating Abroad (2d ed.
2002).
40
Dynamic Processes of Crisis Negotiation (Randall Rogan et al. eds. 1997).
41
Toole, supra note 20, at 6.
42
Jayne Seminare Docherty, Learning Lessons From Waco: When The Parties Bring Their Gods to the Negotiating Table (2001).
43
See, e.g., Lee D. Ross, The Intuitive Psychologist and his Shortcomings: Distortions in the Attribution Process, in 10 Advances in
Experimental Social Psychology 173-220, (Leonard Berkowitz ed. 1977).
44
See, e.g., Harry C. Triandis, The Analysis of Subjective Culture (1972).
45
See, e.g., William R. Cupach & Daniel J. Canary, Competence in Interpersonal Conflict 125 (1997).
46
See Geert H. Hofstede, Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values (1980).
47
See Edward T. Hall, Beyond Culture (1976).
48
See id.
49
Salacuse, supra note 39, at 58.
50
Thompson, supra note 27, at 240-41.
End of Document
© 2011 Thomson Reuters. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.
© 2011 Thomson Reuters. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.
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